Jacob Elordi cannot get off a plane without a Bottega Veneta bag. The Andiamo, the Cabat, the Intrecciato — at this point, his airport paparazzi shots are as much about what he’s carrying as what he’s wearing. He is not alone. Lately, it feels as though every well-dressed man — actors, musicians, footballers, Formula 1 drivers, has quietly added a handbag to his personal uniform. Luxury campaigns have followed, placing men and their bags front and centre rather than treating accessories as an afterthought.
With the FIFA Club World Cup currently underway, even those with no particular interest in football have found themselves paying attention to the French team’s luggage. Players have been arriving with monogrammed Louis Vuitton duffels, oversized Hermès HAC bags and suede Chanel totes. Lamine Yamal has been photographed carrying Chanel’s Urban Essential tote. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s national team arrived in coordinated tailoring paired with leopard-print handbags by designer Alvin Mak — a moment that was equal parts identity, national pride and an exceptionally considered aesthetic choice.
A Business Strategy
After years of post-pandemic spending, many of the industry’s biggest houses have reported slowing sales and softening consumer demand. And yet leather goods have continued to hold their ground. Handbags have quietly been the commercial backbone of luxury fashion for decades — among the highest-margin products a brand can sell, more attainable than ready-to-wear or couture, and instantly recognisable without requiring a runway. While seasonal collections rise and fall, an iconic bag can remain relevant and profitable for years.
If handbags are already the industry’s strongest commercial category, the next logical move becomes clear: make them desirable for everyone.
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The Accessory That Pays The Bills
To do this, luxury brands have quietly redefined what a handbag looks like — and what it’s for.
Oversized leather shoppers. Soft carryalls. Sculptural duffels. Structured totes that accommodate a laptop as comfortably as they do gym clothes. These silhouettes sit at the intersection of function and considered design, practical enough to justify and refined enough to covet. Louis Vuitton’s recent Speedy campaign placed the bag firmly at the centre of the story — not the clothes, not the setting, the bag. In expanding the handbag’s appeal, luxury brands aren’t simply chasing cultural momentum. They’re strategically growing one of their most valuable businesses.
The Athlete Effect
If celebrities made handbags desirable, athletes made them aspirational.
The modern athlete is no longer judged solely on performance. Arrival tunnels, airport paparazzi shots and pre-match walks have become fashion moments in their own right, photographed and dissected with the same rigour once reserved for red carpets. Footballers arrive at tournaments dressed with the precision of a campaign shoot. Formula 1 drivers have transformed paddocks into front rows. NBA players have turned tunnel dressing into a fully realised ecosystem of personal branding.
The handbag has become central to that visual language.
The French national team’s luxury moment sparked conversations well beyond football. Lamine Yamal carrying Chanel generated headlines because it quietly challenged long-held assumptions about what masculine luxury should look like — without appearing to challenge anything at all. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s coordinated leopard-print handbags weren’t merely luggage. They were a statement about identity and aesthetic confidence on a global stage.
Status, Redefined
Jacob Elordi remains perhaps the clearest articulation of where this has landed.
Long before handbags became a talking point in menswear, he had built a quiet but consistent reputation for carrying Bottega Veneta — not as a calculated styling decision, but as part of how he gets dressed. His loyalty to the house has arguably done more for its men’s accessories than many advertising campaigns. The bags never felt like a gimmick. They became part of his personal uniform, which is precisely how the best accessories work.
The conversation around men and handbags has moved on. The question is no longer whether men should carry them — that feels not just settled but beside the point. Attention has shifted toward craftsmanship, silhouette, colour and brand loyalty. The same considerations women have applied to handbags for decades, now simply playing out across a wider audience.
The Real Luxury Play
Fashion presents itself as cyclical. This shift feels more structural than that.
Evolving ideas around masculinity have genuinely made space for handbags in menswear — that much is real. But economics has accelerated the change. Luxury houses aren’t simply responding to shifting consumer behaviour. They are actively shaping it, positioning handbags at the centre of campaigns, celebrity dressing and cultural moments because they understand precisely how valuable the category is and what it takes to sustain that value.
The result is a rare alignment where commerce and culture reinforce each other — each legitimising the other, the seam between them barely visible.
So while it may feel as though handbags have suddenly appeared everywhere in menswear, the reality is more considered than that. Jacob Elordi’s Bottega collection. Athletes arriving with Hermès and Chanel. Louis Vuitton building entire campaigns around leather goods. Each moment has contributed, quietly and deliberately, to the same narrative. The handbag is no longer just an accessory in menswear. It has become its defining piece.
